Canada has promised up to $31 billion in reparations for indigenous children and families who were subjected to prejudice while in foster care.
A top court upheld a 2016 decision that the government underfunded First Nations services in comparison to non-indigenous children’s services.
Each kid who was on reserve welfare after 2006 received C$40,000 in compensation. The court’s decision was initially appealed by the government.
However, it has come under heavy public scrutiny since the revelation of over 1,100 unmarked graves at former residential schools.
Until the year 1996, Canada’s residential school system isolated indigenous children from their families and sent them to boarding schools, where they were starved, beaten, and sexually assaulted in order to “civilize” them.
The school system was used to try to assimilate indigenous children – forcing them to abandon their native tongues and convert to Christianity.
The government’s compensation sum, which is expected to be officially revealed on Tuesday, will be used to repay the 2016 tribunal, as well as two additional cases, and pay for long-term improvements in indigenous child welfare practice, according to a source at the public broadcaster CBC.
Around a total of 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were kept in the schools under operation during 1874-1996.
The policy traumatized generations of indigenous youngsters, forcing them to abandon their native languages, converse English or French, and convert to Christianity.
As a result, the schools were founded and operated by adherents of Protestant Christian churches.
According to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society, the Roman Catholic Church was mostly responsible for running up to 70% of residential schools.
The Vatican announced earlier this year that Pope Francis had consented to make a visit to Canada as part of efforts at national reconciliation.
Despite numerous demands from Canadians, however, the Pope has not issued an official apology for the Church’s involvement, and there is no planned date for one.